524 Histo7'y of the English Landed Interest. 



dut3^ The bare suggestion of sucli a proposal by a respon- 

 sible Minister of the Crown would be sufficient to lower the 

 market value of realty, whilst a Law, enforcing these ends, 

 would inevitably drive part of the English soil out of culti- 

 vation and reintroduce the miserable economy of the Lord's 

 "Waste. 



The seignorial proprietorship to minerals has recently been 

 on its trial. It may have occurred strange to manj^ thoughtful 

 minds that, notwithstanding the strict laws hedging around 

 the position of the tenant-for-life, he is enabled to dispose, so 

 to speak, of a portion of the fabric by treating the profits of 

 his mines as though they were those of produce periodically 

 renewable. A very serious crisis must arise on each mineral 

 estate when its wealth below-o^round has become exhausted. 

 It is not difficult to find a property so heavily encumbered 

 with mortgages and other charges that it would be impossible 

 for it to support its owner were it not for the annual proceeds of 

 its mining royalties. How will improvements to the surface be 

 possible when the incomes of such landlords from these sources 

 cease ? It would seem more compatible with the policy which 

 prohibits " waste," had the landlord's profits of mining been 

 considered a portion of his settled capital, and invested accord- 

 ingly. It is now, however, too late in English manorial history 

 to open up this question, and the attacks from without have 

 not been concerned with this phase of mineral ownership. 

 But the advanced Radical school want to see all mining royal- 

 ties vested in the State, as they were in France in 1810, and 

 in Germany in 1865. The dispute has just been argued out 

 on equitable lines ; for the Royal Commission elected by the 

 Government of Lord Salisbury in 1891 put the problem to a 

 perfectly legitimate test when it asked. Are mining royalties 

 detrimental to public interests ? The evidence supplied afforded 

 a no uncertain reply in the negative. " We are of opinion," 

 say the Commissioners in conclusion, " that the system of 

 royalties has not interfered with the general development of 

 the mineral resources of the United Kingdom, or with the 

 export trade in coal with foreign countries." Surely after the 



